The Agony of Doubt
by Nike
Summary: After the events in the movie, North decides to act as mediator and force Jack and Bunny to figure out why their former relationship ended. Jack and Bunny wish he wouldn't.


**The Agony of Doubt**

**By Nike**

**Summary:** North decides to act as mediator and force Jack and Bunny to figure out why their former relationship ended. Jack and Bunny wish he wouldn't.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Rise of the Guardians or the Guardians of Childhood. This is a derivative work and no money is being made off of it.

* * *

"North, unlock the door. Now," Bunny demanded, angry at the man's gall. He'd open a tunnel if the damn floor wasn't warded against it up here.

"Nyet. You two are needing to be talking. Is not good for fellow Guardians to have bad blood between them," North calmly replied from the chair he'd settled in after magically locking the door. He'd apparently decided he needed to be mediator between Bunny and Jack, much to Bunny's irritation. Between the whole Pitch incident and Bunny's own tendency to hibernate after cleaning up the mess his Warren became every Easter, Bunny was tired and in no mood to have a heart-to-heart about why he and Jack didn't get along. While he was thankful the past few days had proven Jack didn't actually hate Bunny as much as some of his previous actions would suggest, that didn't mean Bunny was ready to discuss why they weren't together any longer. Judging by the way he'd settled up on a crossbeam with his hood up, Jack wasn't interested either.

"Come, now! We are all friends and you two need to work out why you didn't work out before."

"Oh, I know why we didn't work out," Bunny stated, seething. "We didn't work out because, after our first fight, he went and slept with every Tom, Dick, and Harry available." Jack flinched up on his crossbeam, but didn't deny it.

"Then," Bunny continued, "he had the nerve to insist that a relationship that lasted nearly a century had been meaningless to him. That it had always been 'just sex'."

That had hurt, too, especially since Bunny hadn't been able to refute it. Jack had initially approached him because he was in heat, which was standard of a Winter Womb. Bunny had expected it to be a one-time deal. That was how all the spirits who went through heat did things. Jack had even said not to worry about potential offspring, that they were non-compatible, which was just a nice way of saying that he had no intention to bear Bunny's children. Then he'd come back. Every year for damn near a century, Bunny had awoken from his hibernation to the smell of frost and snow and a week-long romp with the winter spirit. Among spirits, seeing one another on non-hostile terms once a decade indicated they were great friends and likely to come to one another's aid. Seeing someone once a year with regular sex? That was a hell of a lot more.

Then they'd had a fight over something that had to be stupid considering Bunny couldn't even remember what had set it off or what all they'd fought about, just that it had come around to having children at one point. But they'd fought and he'd angered Jack enough that the sprite had snowed out Easter '68 over half a continent in retaliation before they went their separate ways. That probably would've been it if hadn't been for the adultery on Jack's part.

Bunny had woken up from his hibernation after that Easter to the smell of frost and snow, only to find out it was the natural sort and not his wayward winter spirit and that he'd missed the other's heat. He later heard that Jack had been with the Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux, during his heat and Bunny decided that Jack had better come crawling back on his knees if he wanted forgiveness. Except he hadn't come back. Instead, he slept with someone else for his next heat. And a different spirit the year after that, which was about the time Bunny realized Jack wasn't ever coming back. Their break-up was the talk of the Spirit World and would be for the next half-century. Even now, over a century later, people still gave him wary side-long glances when mentioning Jack in his presence.

Up on the crossbeam, Jack scoffed. Bunny's ears swiveled toward the winter spirit, followed by a glare.

"It _was_ just sex. I told you as much the first time. Not my fault you decided we were married after being fuck buddies for awhile."

Bunny's ears laid back against his head as he bared his teeth in something that definitely wasn't a smile.

"Interesting," North said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin through his beard. "You are saying you had different idea of what type of relationship you had, Jack?"

"Well, yeah. We saw each other once a year, always during my heat, and we never did anything except have sex."

"We talked," Bunny quickly pointed out. He remembered initiating it once he'd realized they had a thing.

"Not as much as we had sex," Jack countered, "and in my book, that is _not_ 'practically married'."

North shifted uncomfortably before asking, "Jack, you are being aware of how relationships between immortals work, yes?"

"Well, sure, _now_ I do. But back then, not a clue, and I wouldn't have one until a few too many pointed questions about why Bunny and I broke things off made me curious enough to corner someone for answers."

Bunny felt himself wilting at that before anger buoyed him back up.

"So it really didn't mean a damn thing to you? None of it at all?" he demanded to know.

Jack hesitated before saying, "Not at first, no, but toward the end, I was thinking I wanted something more."

Bunny stopped before his nose twitched and he managed an incredulous, "More?"

"Yeah, more. Then everything happened and it didn't seem like such a good idea any longer."

"What happened?" North asked gently. Jack didn't answer.

"The fight," Bunny said after too long a pause.

"What was fight about?" North asked quietly. Aster thumped his foot as he thought, trying to remember that far back. It had been over a century ago, after all.

"I was doing my rounds for the best hiding spots the day before Easter and found Jack in the middle of an unseasonal snowstorm. It was April already, so I told him he needed to knock it off before the snow became too deep for the ankle biters to go out and hunt for my googies. He got angry at me and said he could do whatever he wanted. I asked what he had against children. He said he loved children and, since I was under the impression we were actually together, I said that obviously wasn't true or he'd have had mine already. Then he got all huffy and flew off and I thought that was that until the next morning when I discovered he snowed everything in. I found him and yelled at him some more before he buried me under a snow drift and since I'd wasted too much time searching for him and then digging myself out, I let it go then. Until I woke up from hibernation after our blue to find out he'd gone off and slept with the Gemini. That's when I decided I didn't want anything to do with him. All because I brought up that he doesn't like children."

It was true, too. Everyone knew that the spirits capable of acting as Wombs could only get pregnant if that spirit wanted to get pregnant. Before, Bunny had assumed that, since he and Jack were obviously in a relationship, that meant Jack didn't want or like kids because the Wombs that did tended to pop them out like nobody's business, the Old Woman Who Lived In The Shoe being a prime example.

"I _adore_ children," Jack insisted, swinging off the beam and landing as light as a snowflake. Bunny had always admired that grace, but right now, all the admiration brought was a bitter feelings, so he harrumphed and turned away.

"That is true. Manny would never have chosen Jack to be Guardian if not," North stated with a satisfied nod of his head.

"Well, I had no reason to believe that. We'd been together for _decades_ and not one kit, which told me you either hated children or you just didn't want to have _mine_." After the whole Pitch Incident and now including this talk, it was becoming obvious it hadn't been because Jack didn't like children and more to do with the fact he hadn't wanted to have _Bunny's_ children. Damn if that didn't hurt even worse.

The temperature in the room plummeted, making both North and Bunny shivered.

"Jack!"

"That's not true," Jack muttered before saying louder, "That's not true! I did want to have your baby toward the end!"

"If that was true, then why didn't you?" Bunny demanded.

"Because I lost the baby!" Time seemed to grind to a halt as Bunny stared at Jack, who curled in on himself as he repeated, "I lost the baby. Right before Easter."

Jack looked up at Bunny and said, with quiet insistence, "You have to understand, I didn't have a clue what was going on back then. I spent nearly two decades alone after first waking up before I encountered my first spirit. It was an Autumn Spirit. I was thrilled that I wasn't the only one, but the only thing she said was, 'You're not a nature spirit and I wish you'd stop pretending you were' right before she threw mud in my eyes so I wouldn't see where she disappeared to. I didn't know what my heat was. I just knew I got incredibly horny once a year and couldn't get anything done until I dealt with it myself. It wouldn't be for another five years after seeing my first spirit that I'd run into someone willing to help with my heat. I, uh, ended up in a satyr's garden, that first time."

Both Bunny and North winced at that. Satyr's were notorious for their libido and the unfortunate tendency to believe physical reactions equaled consent. Jack expression suggested he knew about their reputation and, since Jack continued on without even acknowledging their flinches, had no problems with what had happened, which suggested it had been consensual.

"He explained what a heat was and that I could get pregnant, but he didn't say how. I didn't know I had to _want_ to become pregnant to do so. I always thought I just wasn't compatible with whoever I was sleeping with. Hell, I didn't even know why that satyr got so angry after I stopped coming back after a few years until nearly two hundred years later. I've never had anyone to _explain_ any of this to me. Everything I do know is pretty much from trial and error.

"So when I suddenly found myself pregnant at the same time I was pondering how to tell the father I wanted to be more than fuck buddies, I freaked. The last thing I wanted was to use the pregnancy to force you into a relationship that I thought you didn't want. So I hid and, well, went into nesting behavior, but I had no idea what to do or how to take care of myself properly while I was pregnant and I ended up losing it. Her. I think it was a her."

Bunny swallowed thickly before managing, "And then I had to go and be a right drongo and talk about you not wanting to bear my kits right when you were mourning."

"Yeah."

Bunny stayed wilted this time. No wonder Jack had gotten so pissed off and never come back. Jack, for his part, shook himself and reigned in the cold he was still radiating.

"Anyway, I decided not to go bother you the next time I had my heat and ended up with the Gemini instead. When I tried going back the next year, they said they weren't interested in a rebound relationship, which confused the hell out of me, but I found someone else instead. Then I slowly started asking questions. By the time I figured out how most immortals view relationships, it had been nearly a decade and I figured you wouldn't want me back."

Bunny winced, because Jack hadn't been wrong. Bunny had still been too hurt and furious at what he considered the betrayal of their marriage that even begging wouldn't have satisfied him. Acknowledging how much Jack had meant to him had hurt too much. Hell, it still did, even now that he knew the reasons everything had gone sour.

"I'm sorry mate," Bunny said with a sigh. Jack nodded.

"I am too."

Suddenly Bunny found himself squished against Jack and held in place there by North's arms and bulk.

"Gerroff!" His yell was muffled by a mouthful of fabric. Thankfully the embrace ended when Jack started icing North's clothes.

"Ahem!" North cleared his throat as he brushed the melting ice off his clothes. "Now you are getting along much better, yes?"

Bunny and Jack exchanged looks before looking away, although he could hear and, out of the corner of his eye, see Jack running a hand through his hair.

"I guess," Jack said.

"Yeah, sure," Bunny muttered, "Now will you let us go? It's time for me to hibernate and I'm about to drop."

"Yes, yes. You can go. We will talk more later."

Bunny didn't stay to hear if there was anything else because he was out the door as soon as it unlocked and, not much later, safely ensconced in his nest in the Warren.

A few months later, Bunny woke to the scent of frost and snow and the sensation of cool fingers carding through his fur. He opened his eyes to see Jack gently smiling until he realized Bunny was awake and staring, at which point he looked nervous.

"So, uh, I've been thinking and, now that we both know what the other wants and everything, well... Wanna give this another try?"

Bunny smiled.


End file.
